It is not uncommon for surgeons to do a maximum of 2000 grafts per day with FUE, especially if their level of involvement is right. It sounds like a very reasonable advice to split the case. As @Dr Blake Bloxham mentioned, it reduces fatigue and out of body time.

@akc this needs to be treated by your doctor or a dermatologist. There is definitely an infection based on the photos and I do believe it warrants a proper swab to culture what type of infection it is and also some oral antibiotic medication in addition to some topical treatment. You have to see someone locally.

I personally believe you should take the doctors advice regarding the removal time. Leaving things longer is not always a good thing as you could increase the risk of pain, obvious scarring and infections. It is of course needed in some case when healing is slower than usual based on medical conditions (diabetes, cancers etc), however, reduced laxity does not necessarily mean that it needs to stay longer.
In fact in some cases, staying longer unnecessarily could be related to widened scarring too.
Was the wound closed in two layers or just the staples?

The main aim of modern HT surgery is to mimic to the best of our ability what's natural. A typical hairline is composed of two main regions : a transition zone and a defined zone. The transition zone is really as the name implies that zone of few millimeters that marks the end of your bare forehead and the beginning of your hair/scalp. Hairs there are usually fine and thin. Ofcourse, in nature, some may exist in doubles but the calibre and nature of hair in that area is best transplanted using single only fine hairs. This zone is only few millimeters in width and is irregular (not a straight line) and hence the macro and micro irregularities are also drawn in a hairline. As for the defined zone, this comes immediately after and in fact blended with the transition zone. Here, it is best to integrate and blend bigger grafts in order to start giving the illusion of density. If this is nicely done and blended behind the initial transition zone of single hairs, then we should get a nicely balanced and natural hairline.

What age are you @CanadianPT?
You definitely need to be on good maintenance. As for HT, I'd say around 2800-3200 grafts should be enough to cover that. Depending on your hair calibre and number of hairs per follicle too.

I believe that some aspects of the HT are best done by experienced techs. Moreover, the procedure is physically demanding and i do believe that the entire procedure will be extremely exhausting to do entirely by one person (doc or tech), and this in turn will have a negative effect on the quality of work and results.

Yet another interesting question @Melvin-Moderator.
I'm not really sure of what might be triggering the changes in millennials, but I personally think that it simply a matter of us being surrounded by a group of friends, work colleagues etc that are in the age group that represents 50% balding prevalence. I'm not sure if this is quite clear enough, but when you're a young kid or teenager, you'd look at people in theirlate 20s or 30s as generally old and hence them being bald or balding would be simply attributed to age (old age at that time). Nonetheless, when you are among a generation that fits this category, our brain tends to make us think that balding people are getting younger. I'm not implying that we aren't young ofcourse but we generally would consider ourselves not among the older-bald generation that our childhood brain used to construct.
Interesting to hear what others have to say though.

5 weeks is a relatively short period when it comes to healing after any surgical procedure. Just give it time for the whole area to heal. For any scar to mature, it can take months to years. Nonetheless, it does seem you have some pimples/ folliculitis. This generally resolves on its own or with some warm compresses. In some cases, antibiotic ointments or even oral antibiotics may be needed- rarely though.
Best of luck going forward- remember it is a waiting game.

Thank you Gabrielle for sharing a rather comprehensive after care instructions. Please allow me to comment on few things in Bold. I really hope that one day we reach a rather universal protocol on this.

I just had a look at your old post and I do think you do like the option of having your hair short? In that case FUE would probably be favorable. I do think your first transplant was good, but looking at the pre op photos, I do think 2200 would’ve been a home run for you. Are you on any maintenance therapy?

I strongly urge you not to tap into your crown at this age. You will need to be on finasteride to slown down your loss. However, with a crown that still looks unstable in terms of margins, I would leave it alone to save the grafts for other areas. You can also consider things like a hair system to cover the crown and save your donor area for the front and mid scalp.